Sony Pictures Animation
Sony Pictures Animation Inc. (formerly Columbia Pictures Feature Animation and Columbia TriStar Feature Animation) is an American animation studio owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment through their Motion Picture Group division and founded on January 4, 1986. The studio's films are distributed worldwide by Sony Pictures Releasing under their Columbia Pictures label, while all direct-to-video releases are released by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Its first film Story Tales was released on October 28, 1988, and its latest release was The Angry Birds Movie 2 on August 14, 2019, with their next confirmed release being''The Mitchells vs. the Machines'' on February 7, 2020. History 1959–1986: Restarting the studio The original Screen Gems cartoon studio was closed down in 1946. However, before Columbia restarted its animation division in 1987, Columbia released its first sixth animated films which were produced by outside studios, such as 1001 Arabian Nights, Hey There, It's Yogi Bear!, The Man Called Flintstone, American Pop, Drugy, Heavy Metal, and Care Bears Movie II: A New Generation. After the success of Valentina's Greenwoods and Don Bluth's An American Tail, Columbia responded to the success of those films by reestablishing its own animation studio. Columbia Pictures Feature Animation opened its doors in 1986 to develop characters, stories and movies, as well as produce theatrically released animated feature films to rival Disney. More coming soon! 1987–1990: Initial success The first of Columbia's animated features was Story Tales (1988). Story Tales received positive reviews from critics and was a success at the box office. More coming soon! 1991–2000: The rise and fall of Columbia TriStar Feature Animation On August 7, 1991, After Sony acquired Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc. and renamed it into Sony Pictures Entertainment, Columbia Pictures Feature Animation was renamed into Columbia TriStar Feature Animation. More coming soon! 2001–present: Sony Pictures Animation today In 2001, Sony Pictures considered selling off its visual effects facility Sony Pictures Imageworks. After failing to find a suitable buyer, having been impressed with the CGI sequences created for Stuart Little 2, and seeing the box office success of DreamWorks Animation's Shrek and Disney/Pixar's Monsters, Inc., CTFA was reconfigured to become an animation studio, with SPI taking over the digital production while maintaining its visual effects production. Astro Boy, which had been in development at Sony since 1997 as a live-action film, was set to be CTFA's first all-CGI film. On May 9, 2002, Sony Pictures renamed Columbia TriStar Feature Animation to Sony Pictures Animation. Meanwhile, SPI produced two short films, the Academy Award-winning The ChubbChubbs! and Early Bloomer, as a result of testing its strengths and weaknesses in producing all-CG animation. On its twenty-seven anniversary on May 9, 2003, Sony Pictures Animation announced a full slate of computer-animated projects in development: Open Season, an adaptation of a Celtic folk ballad Tam Lin, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Surf's Up, and a feature-length version of the short film The ChubbChubbs!. SPA's next feature, Secret Magic (2004) received mixed reviews from critics and under-performed at the box office which led to a growing perception that hand-drawn animation was becoming outdated and falling out of fashion in favor of the increasing popularity of computer animation, so SPA decided the same year to exit hand-drawn animation business. Despite this, however, the studio still has some hand-drawn animated productions underway, only for direct-to-video and television series, respectively. Its first computer-animated feature film was Open Season, released in September 2006, which became Sony's second-highest-grossing home entertainment film in 2007 and spawned three direct-to-video sequels. Its second feature film, Surf's Up was released in June 2007, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, and won two Annie Awards. A motion-captured animated film, Neanderthals, written and produced by Jon Favreau, was cancelled sometime in 2008, after four years in development. SPA's first 3D movie since the IMAX 3D release of Open Season, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, was released in September 2009, and was nominated for four Annie Awards, including Best Animated Feature. The Smurfs (2011) was the studio's first CGI/live-action hybrid. SPA's parent company Sony Pictures had partnered in 2007 with Aardman Animations to finance, co-produce and distribute feature films. Together, they produced two films: Arthur Christmas (2011), and The Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012), which was SPA's first stop-motion film. In September 2012, SPA released Hotel Transylvania, which grossed over $350 million worldwide and launched a successful franchise with two sequels and a TV series. SPA's latest release was Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, an animated superhero film based on the Spider-Man comics, and The Angry Birds Movie 2, a sequel to the 2016 film The Angry Birds Movie produced by Rovio Animation. SPA has since signed Genndy Tartakovsky to a long-term deal with the studio to develop and direct original films. The studio is currently working on The Mitchells vs. the Machines, a robot apocalypse/road trip film written and directed by Michael Rianda and Jeff Rowe while produced by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (2020), Vivo ''(2020), ''Two Teenage Ghost 2 (2021) and Hotel Transylvania 4 (2021),. It has many other projects in development, including an animated Ghostbusters spin-off film, an untitled film from Jon Saunders, Fixed, and Black Knight. On November 3, 2014, the studio collaborated with Frederator Studio's Cartoon Hangover on GO! Cartoons, an incubator series consisting of 12 short films, with at least one short film being developed into a series. The short films were funded by SPA, with the additional goal of attracting new talent for the studio. According to Kristine Belson, president of SPA, the studio produces films on a 1:1 development-to-production ratio, meaning that the studio puts films into development as much as it places films in production, unlike other animation studios. The studio has plans to produce adult animated content for digital platforms. Process In a similar fashion to the Warner Animation Group and Paramount Animation, the studio often collaborates with Sony Pictures Imageworks to produce its films. Though certain films are sometimes outsourced to different studios. Some films, such as Arthur Christmas, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, Two Teenage Ghost, and Wish Dragon, were acquired by Sony Pictures Animation to be released under their banner; while others, such as Goosebumps and Peter Rabbit, was made with no involvement with the studio. Filmography : Main article: List of Sony Pictures Animation productions Franchises : ABSony Pictures Animation was not involved with the first Angry Birds Movie. See also * Sony Pictures Imageworks Category:Company